It’s a common mistake. A young, ambitious entrepreneur will see a coffee shop open up on every corner of their city and think to themselves “I should open a coffee shop”. Hopefully, they have a seasoned adviser to ask them, “How do you plan to compete with all the other coffee shops?”...

One of the sad realities of human life is that people do bad things. What leads to that fact and its various philosophical implications is something we'll leave to better minds to analyze. But for the thousands of merchants using Shopventory, this means having to deal with the unpleasant subject of both Customer and Employee theft...

Intuit recently posted this great infographic showing the best cities for women entrepreneurs—and we were especially excited to see Shopventory home bases of San Diego and Denver on the map!More compelling, however, was their set of seven simple tips that are applicable to both men and women starting their own business. Mentorship and developing a support system was a common theme, but the last one really stuck with us: Don't wait for perfect timing.

If you're waiting to feel "ready" to dive into starting a business, you'll be waiting a long time. With such a huge career decision, it's unlikely you'll ever feel 100% ready to take the plunge. And we are far from suggesting that you quit your day job without a road map... but if you've got a viable product, a well-thought plan and the financial and personal support you need to make it happen, it might be time to go for it. Forbes even theorizes that the best time to start a business is during an economic downturn, so what are you waiting for?